why is russia so important here, molly. >> reporter: russia is one of syria's allies, in fact one of sear kwras onl syria as only allies. and that is why it is thought they may have some sway over syria and bashar al-assad. hillary clinton is in a meeting this afternoon at a security conference in dublin, ireland. they will be meeting today specifically on syria. at the same time the secretary general of the united nations says he also is pressing syria not to use chemical weapons. >> i'm just very much concerned, and i have warned that in any case if chemical weapons is used then they will have to be put to justice and create serious consequences to those people. >> reporter: if president bashar al-assad were to leave the country it would create an immediate problem with who would take over and a secondary problem of who would control the chemical weapons. jon. jon: it is one thing to load seran gas into shells and so forth, it's quite another thing to use them. what does the pentagon say are the chances that bashar al-assad will use the gas in. >> that is the big question. they rea